Monday, April 20, 2015

Natural Colonial Piedmont Georgia

Recreating the setting of the Colonial Georgia Piedmont
(essentially Middle Georgia) during the late 1700s means one must imagine a
wilderness little spoiled by settlement. Many pioneers of this region were
Scots-Irish generally unwelcome in the staid British communities of New England
who had followed the Great Wagon Road south as lands increasingly opened up.
Government officials were happy for these tough and fiery immigrants to provide
a barrier to the Indian nations. By 1765, the land west of Augusta, Georgia
began to look attractive. In 1773, naturalist William Bartram described Augusta
as being located on a rich and fertile plain on the Savannah River, with
buildings near the banks extending nearly two miles. In this location Georgia
Governor Wright and Indian Superintendent John Stuart conducted a treaty with
Creek and Cherokee Indians that opened 1.5 million acres east of the Oconee
River to British Settlement due to Indian debt to white traders. The Upper
Creek Trading Path ran due west of Augusta to Greensboro (est. 1786). From
Augusta’s southwest corner, the Lower Creek Path traced the fall line west
across the lower Oconee River to a trading post which would later become
Milledgeville, then to Macon.

Bartram himself describes taking the old Cherokee Trading
Path through forests and cane swamps to the Quaker settlement at
Wrightsborough. Here residents raised wheat, barley, flax, oats, corn, indigo,
cattle, sheep, apples, pears, peaches, plums, nectarines, cherries and
raspberries. Proceeding in the direction of present-day Oglethorpe County
outside Athens (where my next series will be set), he noted many flora and
fauna off of which Native Americans lived. The leaves of the plantain plant
could be boiled and its seed pods eaten like spinach. Some natives called it
“white man’s foot” for its profusion. It was also good for bee strings or brown
recluse bites, if the patient would both chew its leaves and place them on the
sting. Walnut, chestnut and hickory trees were in abundance, often planted in
groves surrounding abandoned settlements. Grape and pea vines grew waist high. Creek
hunters would carry the ripe yellow fruit of the “Physic-nut” or Indian Olive with
them to supposedly lure deer. Bartram also wrote that the Creeks, who called
themselves Muscoges, created an infusion of leaves and the tops of the cassine
(“the beloved tree”) to make their black drink, a diuretic. They prevented
worms by including a lixivium prepared from the ashes of bean stalks and vegetables
in all their corn foods. Ginseng and white or “belly ache” root was used for
the stomach and intestines by either chewing the root and swallowing the juice
or smoking it in tobacco form. Grape roots dug while fresh, chopped and mashed,
then drained and the thick part mixed with water, honey and sugar made a fine
jelly.

Settlers learned from the Indians and discovered the practical
purposes of other native herbs and plants. Cleavers, or “bedstraw,” could be
used to stuff mattresses until the hay came in. Made into a tea it was helpful
to the kidney, bladder, gout and with water retention problems. Mullein could
grow taller than a person and had multiple purposes: the Cherokee used its
fluffy leaf for toilet paper, its bottom leaves made good cigars for respiratory
problems, and its yellow flowers on top when mixed with olive oil and placed in
the ear could cure infection. Kidney stones were often treated by hydrangea
root tea or Queen of the Meadow/Joe Pye Weed/”gravel root.” Elderberries, often
made into a pleasing jam or jelly, offered protection against viruses, while
goldenseal root powdered then boiled with water and cooled could be taken for a
couple weeks at a time as an antibiotic.

Another natural phenomenon was the Buffalo Lick located in
what it now Southeastern Oglethorpe County, near what would become the antebellum town of
Philomath. At the head of White’s Creek was a 1.5-acre section where the earth
was white, red, yellow, or “fattish” clay. In the late 1700s, some holes where
cattle and previous buffalo had licked up the sodium sulphate were 5-6’ deep.
Years later as excavations for railroads occurred in rural Georgia, poor
residents were known to stop to eat and take home in sacks chunks of exposed
white minerals. The grit particles were said to be the main downside of the
almost-pure calcium carbonate.

In 1783, Virginia families settled on the Broad River in current
Eastern Oglethorpe County. Ever wonder how they drove their wagons to their new
communities without established roads? These settlers described no underbrush
beneath the trees! Primeval forests with massive canopies and wagon-wide
spacing! They picked land with springs with no overlooking high ground Indians
could make use of for attacks and proceeded to establish farms where they grew
corn (a portion was always used for distilling), beans, squash, and sweet
potatoes. Cattle, hogs and sheep had to be penned nightly against wolves and
thieving Indian “pony clubs.” River cane and native bamboo provided year-round
cattle forage.

With miles of wilderness between farms and settlements,
frequent attacks by Creek Indians, and smallpox epidemics, one can imagine the
high premium placed on doctors. While most were trained in the allopathic
school of medicine featuring blood letting and the use of mercury and minerals,
wise physicians also became students of Indian cures and herbal remedies. One
such gentleman was Lindsey Durham, who moved to the mill community of Scull
Shoals in 1817. He had received formal training at the University of
Pennsylvania and studied botanicals in Bartram Garden but also gave credence to
Indian and African healing methods. In the 1820s, he joined the liberal-minded
“American Eclectics” of the new Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia who
believed a remedy could be found in nature for every human ailment. Durham grew
thousands of medicinal herbs and plants on his estate, and his sanatorium was
visited by people from all over the state of Georgia.